I was ecstatic to read another Patrick Lencioni book. The Three Signs of a Miserable Job discusses the three signs – Anonymity, Irrelevance, and Immeasurement – and the critical role that the manager plays in ensuring these three signs are addressed for their employees. The book does an excellent job of pointing out how well this model applies in different industries with different types of workers.
While I definitely saw the value in the book from a manager’s perspective, I find myself reading it from an individual contributor role perspective and wondering where to go from here. The model is solid, but when you’re not getting those things from your manager, what are your options? Lencioni discusses this very briefly at the end of the book pointing out that employees should have an open and honest discussion with their manager about these signs and what they feel they need to be successful. He also discusses how employees can ask pointed questions during the interview process to assess the culture and management style of their prospective employer.
These are great suggestions and certainly hold value. However, I find myself reserved to the fact that most managers don’t want to hear from their employees how they should be managing. Most managers hate receiving feedback, even when it is intended to be construction. I think this goes a long way to supporting the author’s statements that we have a serious management problem in business today.
This book opened my eyes to things that I was not receiving in my prior positions that made me miserable. At one job, it was both that my manager couldn’t have cared less who I was or what made me tick. In another job, it was that I was asked to do so many things all the time without any kind of measurement and no basis for how these tasks and responsibilities held any value whatsoever to other people. This was the “I’m the manager, so do what I say” style, and that really only works for so long.
I worked for an organization once where I was in a meeting presenting to the executive team our employee engagement data, which was not positive data by any means. I will never forget one of the strangest comments I ever heard from one of the executives. “They (the employees) should be happy that they are receiving a paycheck. We pay good money here.” When high-ranking leaders are unable to see the impact of a job and a company beyond the paycheck, this goes a long way to explaining why employee engagement was low, turnover was high, and the culture was negative and highly political.
In one of my early management roles, I was trained not to ask personal questions or get involved with personal topics because it bordered on unprofessional and could present several HR issues and potential lawsuits. We couldn’t be friends or really all that friendly because it could impact a manager’s ability to be objective when reviewing their people and potentially firing that person. Does this sound absolutely insane to anyone else? Maybe there is a fraction of logic in this, but if you’re unable to feel comfortable talking with your people and getting to know them, how will you ever truly appreciate them as people? How can a manager use emotional intelligence and see the perspective of other people? This book slaps this concept right in the proverbial face by discussing the Anonymity concept in detail. To be honest, my favorite manager would ask about my weekends and my family regularly. They were engaged in what I said and cared about what I was going through, whether good or bad. I felt valued and felt “seen.” I was and still am more loyal to that manager than any other manager I’ve worked for.
I find myself feeling a little sad that this model isn’t taught broadly to managers all over. “It’s so simple” was a frequent phrase used throughout the book as the characters came to understand and apply the model. If it’s so simple, why can’t it be done? This one is going to hang with me for a while. I am grateful to have read this book and will continue pondering how to apply this model moving forward.
